Mark Gayn Dead at 72

Mark Gayn, a journalist and author who was considered an outstanding authority on the Far East and the Soviet Union, has died here at the age of 72 after a lengthy battle with cancer. For the past two decades he was a member of the editorial board of the Toronto Star.

Born into an assimilated Russian Jewish family in Manchuria, Gayn was raised in China, resided in the Soviet Union during the early post-revolutionary years and graduated from Pomona College in California. Despite his assimilated background, he expressed a heightened interest in Israel in recent years and followed its development with close concern and sympathy. At his funeral, David Ariel, Israel’s Consul General in Toronto, underlined Gayn’s close relationship with Israel.

Regarded as one of the leading authorities on foreign affairs, Gayn wrote for Amerasia, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Newsweek, Chicago Sun, The Nation, and for the last 30 years for the Toronto Star. He was in China during the last years of the Kuomintang government, in Japan during the early years following World War II, and travelled widely in Mongolia, the USSR, Eastern Europe, Korea and Vietnam. His book, “Japan Diary,” appeared in 1952 and sold widely. He had recently completed a sequel, “New Japan Diary.”